Disney Drops Johnny Depp's 'Lone Ranger?!'

Is it possible that the Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding off into the sunset once and for all?

Over the weekend,Disney took aim and fired at the expensive production of "The Lone Ranger," which would star Armie Hammer as the Ranger and Johnny Depp as his sidekick, Tonto. The illustrious cast was set to include Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, Dwight Yoakam and Barry Pepper, with more to come. That's a lot of silver bullets.

Deadline reports that the big budget was to blame; even with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski trying to wrangle the budget down to $232 million, that was still $32 million more than the studio wanted to spend.

Another twist is that Johnny Depp wanted the movie to focus more on Tonto, something that may have contributed to the movie's cost in a roundabout way. He told Entertainment Weekly in May, "When the idea came up [for the movie], I started thinking about Tonto and what could be done in my own small way try to — 'eliminate' isn’t possible — but reinvent the relationship, to attempt to take some of the ugliness thrown on the Native Americans, not only in 'The Lone Ranger,'but the way Indians were treated throughout history of cinema, and turn it on its head."